One of the first things you learn when you’re making a film is that you can get in almost anywhere. To create an authentic film environment, we’re visiting real-world places that will be in Silver Circle – and today I’m here to report on our visit to a real silver refinery, one of the few in the US.

Pasha Roberts- Producer/Director, Raedia Albinson-Animation Director, and myself wrangled our way to get clearance to visit here. It is not everyday one can enter with permission into a one of these secret, high-security places!

Without giving too much detail about how and where the silver refinery fits into the upcoming animated film , I will walk you through our tour. Out of respect for the refinery owner, we’ve changed the names and some key details. Also the photos are generic and were the best I could do. However, the encounters that I will be speaking about are first hand.

As soon as we entered the refinery area, we were overcome by a loud and overwhelming roaring noise. The furnaces and vents running in all corners of the warehouse made it hard to hear the tour guide clearly all the way through. Along with the noise, the overall ambiance of the warehouse of flames was intimidating and highly secured. When I mean secured, I mean even the show Law & Order was denied access when they were filming an episode that took place in a refinery. Apparently Silver Circle has more street cred than Law and Order!

Alas, we were asked to leave all cameras, cell phones, or other recording devices outside of the vicinity. The CEO of the company, a very serious dude, took us all aside and grilled us for our intentions to be sure we were genuine. Apparently we passed his test and got to the next stage.

Janice, our tour guide and savvy chemist, brought us into the inner sanctum, the actual pouring and molding grounds. The “melt room” held 10 or more roaring, glowing furnaces. The furnaces appeared much like a witch’s caldron, especially when a heat-shielded worker stirred the molten contents with a long- stemmed graphite mixing wand. Some furnaces were much larger and used a hydraulic attachment to pour the metal once it reaches the desirable temp. Others were small and would come up about as high as my hip (I’m vertically challenged so that may be some of your knees). Each active furnace was bursting with orange flames out of every crevasse. They said the temperatures are as high or higher than 1950 ºF. Janice warned the crew and I NOT to stare at the metal stream too long, because it will literally burn out your retina. To be honest, this made it difficult to stare the rest of the tour in fear of becoming blind, and at this point possibly deaf from the constant din that consumed the room.

We sat and watched as the heavily protected covered workers took graphite bowls, filled them with gold or silver, and lowered the bowls in to the roaring furnace. I might add for those of you who are not scientific geniuses, that graphite can not melt under the high temperatures. The precious metals would melt in the furnace for about 45 minutes.

Raedia’s job is to create this all in 3D – so she was madly trying to sketch all of this, while Pasha and I distracted the tour guide with questions. We watched the workers pour the glowing metal into bar molds. Yes, right in front of our eyes were hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pure liquid gold. And around us was millions more in silver and gold. No wonder they gave us the metal detectors and a full search before we left.

Next Janice walked us into yet another loud room with about six furnaces, all numerically labeled. Barrels lined the wall, filled with knives and necklaces. I’m sure they had a system to keep track of it all. All I could think about were the commercials about sending in your silver and gold and getting a paycheck in the mail all by calling 1-800-LUV-GOLD or some cheesy number like it. I am curious how many people actually participate in that business and how they would feel if their heirlooms ended up like this?

Pouring metal into a mold. (Don’t look too long you might lose an eye!)

So back to these numerically labeled furnaces – they are used to take moisture out of raw materials. THEN Janice dropped the fact that the furnaces were old crematories. We all looked at each other with surprise and began to feel as if the room we were standing in was creepily evolving into a room of harbored spirits. Wait, maybe that was just me. If you stay tuned for the movie premiere you may see why this is VERY ironic.

I hope you all are still following along at this point and you are learning something, I sure did. All of the melting and pouring makes partially pure “biscuits” of metal. These are rough and heavy and basically look kind of like Moses’ Ten Commandment Templates. The refiners cart these biscuits to the next room for an acid bath.

Almost exactly what the biscuits looked like. (Minus the Paleo-Hebrew)

The refiners put these biscuits in an electrically charged acid solution for several days. Through the process, some unwanted metals are dissolved while the pure silver detaches from the “biscuit” and attaches to the electrodes with stuff that looks almost like fairy dust and crystals.

Acid baths. (I think this guy needs to try out safety gear for a change)

This, my friends and future loyal readers, is the pure silver. They take this back and melt the pure silver in the “caldron” once again and pour that bad-boy into molds to make 1000-ounce bars. At today’s prices, these 68-pound barbells would cost over $16,000.00 . So there you have it, a bar of .999. The cream of the crop, top notch, shiny….SILVER.

To peace and rebellion…Salud,

Megan

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One of the first things you learn when you’re making a film is that you can get in almost anywhere. To create an authentic film environment, we’re visiting real-world places that will be in Silver Circle – and today I’m here to report on our visit to a real silver refinery, one of the few in the US.

Pasha Roberts- Producer/Director, Raedia Albinson-Animation Director, and myself wrangled our way to get clearance to visit here. It is not everyday one can enter with permission into a one of these secret, high-security places!

Without giving too much detail about how and where the silver refinery fits into the upcoming animated film , I will walk you through our tour. Out of respect for the refinery owner, we’ve changed the names and some key details. Also the photos are generic and were the best I could do. However, the encounters that I will be speaking about are first hand.

As soon as we entered the refinery area, we were overcome by a loud and overwhelming roaring noise. The furnaces and vents running in all corners of the warehouse made it hard to hear the tour guide clearly all the way through. Along with the noise, the overall ambiance of the warehouse of flames was intimidating and highly secured. When I mean secured, I mean even the show Law & Order was denied access when they were filming an episode that took place in a refinery. Apparently Silver Circle has more street cred than Law and Order!

Alas, we were asked to leave all cameras, cell phones, or other recording devices outside of the vicinity. The CEO of the company, a very serious dude, took us all aside and grilled us for our intentions to be sure we were genuine. Apparently we passed his test and got to the next stage.

Janice, our tour guide and savvy chemist, brought us into the inner sanctum, the actual pouring and molding grounds. The “melt room” held 10 or more roaring, glowing furnaces. The furnaces appeared much like a witch’s caldron, especially when a heat-shielded worker stirred the molten contents with a long- stemmed graphite mixing wand. Some furnaces were much larger and used a hydraulic attachment to pour the metal once it reaches the desirable temp. Others were small and would come up about as high as my hip (I’m vertically challenged so that may be some of your knees). Each active furnace was bursting with orange flames out of every crevasse. They said the temperatures are as high or higher than 1950 ºF. Janice warned the crew and I NOT to stare at the metal stream too long, because it will literally burn out your retina. To be honest, this made it difficult to stare the rest of the tour in fear of becoming blind, and at this point possibly deaf from the constant din that consumed the room.

We sat and watched as the heavily protected covered workers took graphite bowls, filled them with gold or silver, and lowered the bowls in to the roaring furnace. I might add for those of you who are not scientific geniuses, that graphite can not melt under the high temperatures. The precious metals would melt in the furnace for about 45 minutes.

Raedia’s job is to create this all in 3D – so she was madly trying to sketch all of this, while Pasha and I distracted the tour guide with questions. We watched the workers pour the glowing metal into bar molds. Yes, right in front of our eyes were hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pure liquid gold. And around us was millions more in silver and gold. No wonder they gave us the metal detectors and a full search before we left.

Pouring metal into a mold. (Don’t look too long you might lose an eye!)

Next Janice walked us into yet another loud room with about six furnaces, all numerically labeled. Barrels lined the wall, filled with knives and necklaces. I’m sure they had a system to keep track of it all. All I could think about were the commercials about sending in your silver and gold and getting a paycheck in the mail all by calling 1-800-LUV-GOLD or some cheesy number like it. I am curious how many people actually participate in that business and how they would feel if their heirlooms ended up like this?

So back to these numerically labeled furnaces – they are used to take moisture out of raw materials. THEN Janice dropped the fact that the furnaces were old crematories. We all looked at each other with surprise and began to feel as if the room we were standing in was creepily evolving into a room of harbored spirits. Wait, maybe that was just me. If you stay tuned for the movie premiere you may see why this is VERY ironic.

I hope you all are still following along at this point and you are learning something, I sure did. All of the melting and pouring makes partially pure “biscuits” of metal. These are rough and heavy and basically look kind of like Moses’ Ten Commandment Templates. The refiners cart these biscuits to the next room for an acid bath.

Almost exactly what the biscuits looked like. (Minus the Paleo-Hebrew)

The refiners put these biscuits in an electrically charged acid solution for several days. Through the process, some unwanted metals are dissolved while the pure silver detaches from the “biscuit” and attaches to the electrodes with stuff that looks almost like fairy dust and crystals.

Acid Tubs (I think this gentleman should put on the proper safety gear)

This, my friends and future loyal readers, is the pure silver. They take this back and melt the pure silver in the “caldron” once again and pour that bad-boy into molds to make 1000-ounce bars. At today’s prices, these 68-pound barbells would cost over $16,000.00 . So there you have it, a bar of .999. The cream of the crop, top notch, shiny….SILVER.

To peace and rebellion…Salud,

Megan

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